


The Scientific Method

by shiptoomuch



Series: Awkward Baby Lesbian Camilla [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, F/F, discovering lesbianism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 20:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15155363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiptoomuch/pseuds/shiptoomuch
Summary: Or, how to figure out you're a lesbian and in love with your best friend all at once.





	The Scientific Method

“Can I ask you a question?”

“’Course.” 

“How did you know you were a lesbian?”

Larissa rolls onto her side to look at Camilla. She furrows her brow and takes a hit from the joint they’ve been passing. She offers it to Camilla, who turns it down, before speaking. “I’m not a lesbian.”

“What are you?” Camilla says without thinking. The pot is apparently hitting her harder than she thought it would after two hits. “I mean-“

“I know you what you mean,” Larissa cuts her off with a smirk. She doesn’t say anything else. 

Camilla clears her throat and nabs the blunt to take a drag before putting it out against the shingles of the ‘reading room.’ “So…what do you identify as?” The words feel clunky and so Samwell but they’re the right words, she knows. 

Larissa shrugs and runs her hand through her hair. “I don’t really use labels. I like women the most, sure, but dudes aren’t out of the picture completely. I’m just…me.”

“I think I like labels. For me.”

“Are you trying to tell me something here?”

Camilla huffs out half a laugh and looks over her shoulder to the window she’d just climbed out of. Jack’s, of course. It’s become a thing for her to climb out here and talk to Larissa after hooking up with him. Things with him are good. They’re relaxed, they don’t mean a lot. She’s pretty sure she likes him. “No, I don’t think so.”

-

It’s too hot in the haus when Camilla meets Larissa. She’s just slipped upstairs to get a little air away from the party when she finds another girl up there: short, with cropped hair and paint spattered overalls on. “You’re not supposed to be up here.”

The girl raises an eyebrow at her. “I’m pretty sure it’s you who’s not supposed to be up here.”

“The team, they don’t-“

“Let anyone up here during kegsters, I know.” The girl sticks her hand out for a shake that feels sarcastic, somehow. “Larissa Duan, team manager.”

The name clicks and Camilla’s eyebrows fly up. “Oh! You’ve been in Kenya, right?”

“Yeah. Who are you?”

“Camilla. I’m- uh- Jack and I are…dating?”

It sounds stupid to Camilla’s ears, but Larissa just nods understandingly. “Yeah, that sounds like Jack. Is he still downstairs?”

“Yeah, I think he’s berating a freshman. Frog? For dancing on a table to Beyonce. I just needed a moment away from it all.”

Larissa tilts her head to the side like she’s considering this. It makes Camilla feel like she’s being x-rayed. Finally, she jerks her head down the hall. “Wanna come out onto the reading room?”

“Reading room?”

“The part of the roof over the front porch.”

Her tennis coach would probably kill her, but Camilla agrees. She follows Larissa down the hall and through a bedroom that smells like weed before climbing out of the window onto the roof. The two beers Camilla has had in the last two hours aren’t affecting her enough to make her scared of falling off. Her coach really would kill her if that happened. 

Larissa sits down with her back to the wall of the house. Camilla is pretty sure that this is the coolest girl she’s ever met. She’s nothing like Camilla. 

Camilla wears athleisure clothes on a good day and has blonde hair that has never been shorter than shoulders. She’s got a great grade point average at an excellent school and is dating one of the most “eligible” young men possibly on earth. She is everything that her parents could have ever wanted from her. Larissa is so much cooler than her. 

“Are you going to sit?”

“Yeah.” Camilla sits next to her, just close enough that she could knock their shoulders together if she leaned over. She thinks this is what college is supposed to be like. You’re supposed to meet a stranger and sit on the roof together during a big party and get to know them and then never see them again.

“What was your first kiss like?”

“Good. Her name was Katherine. She was wearing cherry chapstick.”

“Very Katy Perry.”

“Yeah. What about yours.”

“My first boyfriend, Dylan. He was…boring.”

They sit on the reading room with a blanket stolen from the bedroom they climbed through for about a half an hour before they get too cold. It’s warm for February but the air comes out of her mouth in puffs of fog when Camilla tells Larissa about her sister and her parents and how _perfect_ everything with them always seems. They crawl back into the haus and Larissa gets swept away by Shitty as soon as they get to the first floor, so Camilla goes to find Jack and maybe make out a little bit before he heads up to bed soon.

Camilla doesn’t expect to see Larissa again that night, but Camilla is on her way out when she sees Larissa in the kitchen with what appears to be a random girl attached to her neck. Larissa opens her eyes and they make eye contact for probably too long, because Larissa waves and gives an awkward smile. 

-

It took Camilla five months of hanging around the haus with Jack to meet Larissa, but once the manager is back from Kenya, they seem to be constantly running into each other. Their paths to and from classes cross a surprising amount and even though she doesn’t live there, Larissa is always at the haus when Camilla comes downstairs after a little stress relief with Jack.

The first time she asks if Camilla wants to get froyo, it’s surprising. It’s also not at all. 

They end up talking for hours, and it surprises Camilla because she had filed that first night at the kegster away as a fluke, a drunken connection between girls not dissimilar to spilling secrets in a club bathroom. 

“Do you ever feel like dudes are super lame?”

Larissa raises an eyebrow and takes a bite from her monstrous mix of too many flavors. “You’re literally dating one of my best friends.”

Camilla shrugs and twirls her spoon around her fingers. The nail polish Aubrey put on her yesterday is already chipped. “I know. Jack is great, he’s a really cool dude, but I don’t know…I feel like every relationship I’ve ever been in has been kinda…meh. Is that the patriarchy?”

“Dude if you don’t want to be in a relationship, you shouldn’t be.”

Camilla considers this. She’s been dating guys since she was sixteen years old. She was prom queen her senior year. Some of her past boyfriends have been her really good friend. She considers Jack a good friend. 

She likes boys well enough. She likes having sex.

A member of the tennis team recently came out as asexual, and Camilla thinks maybe that has something to do with it. “I don’t know. I’ll talk to Jack.”

-

Camilla breaks up with Jack. It’s easy. She tells him that she’s too busy, that neither of them have the time it takes to care for a relationship. Jack looks confused at first, and she almost wants to laugh in relief that this didn’t mean much to him either. 

“I’ll still see you around, though?” 

“What?”

“Well, you and Lardo are close, eh? So, I’ll see you around,” Jack explains.

“Yeah, I guess so.” It is true that Camilla has been around the haus more lately to see Larissa (who doesn’t even live there) than to see Jack. Sometimes seeing Larissa turns into seeing Jack, and vice versa, but she spends more time with the manager. 

Jack coughs and frowns slightly like he’s trying to think of the right way to word what he wants to say next. “You know, I’d be fine if you-“

“I’m not,” Camilla says quickly to save this poor jock from himself. “Larissa and I haven’t- we don’t-“

“I know. I just think it would be fine if you…did.”

-

One of Larissa’s friends is in Camilla’s history lecture. She has a different hair color every week, and the same doc martens every day. She never takes notes, but always has something to add to a class discussion. 

She catches Camilla staring one day, and winks.

-

As paranoid as her conversation with Jack made her that everyone thinks she’s gay now, nobody else mentions it. Her roommates and teammates try to set her up with every guy they come across. Her sister asks her about why she broke up with Jack. Nobody says anything about how much she’s been around Larissa. Everything is, apparently, normal. 

“Hey Lar?”

“Yeah?”

Camilla turns away from the mirror and puts her hands on her hips. “Do these running shorts make me look dumpy? I just got them and they’re longer than I normally wear.”

Larissa looks up from her sketchbook and puts her chin in her left hand. “I think it’s impossible for you to ever look dumpy.”

It is far from the first time that Camilla has been complimented on her appearance, even by another woman, but heat rises to her cheeks at the frankness in Larissa’s tone of voice. She turns quickly back to the mirror and rolls up the waistband of the shorts to see if that looks dumb. It does. She shimmies out of the shorts and tosses them back toward her closet. She resists the urge to look over her shoulder to check if Larissa is watching her. She takes a quick peek in the mirror and sees Larissa studying her drawing with too much intensity.

Whatever, this is her apartment. She can take her clothes off if she wants to. She undresses in front of friends all the time; it’s just a thing that girls do. 

“Hey can you toss me my leggings? They’re in my backpack.” Camilla catches them when Larissa tosses them over and pulls them on. She considers herself in the mirror. “And can I borrow that hockey tank you have?”

“The one that I’m wearing?” 

Camilla turns and, yeah, Larissa is wearing the oversized tank top that hangs so far down on her petite frame that it almost looks like a dress. “Yeah, that one.”

“Uh…sure?”

Camillla waits for a moment before holding out her hand. “Well come on, give it here.”

“I’m not wearing a bra?”

Camilla snorts. “Are you sure about that? I don’t care; you never wear bras.”

Larissa rolls her eyes and strips off the tank top. Camilla feels like she should feel creepy just looking at her topless friend, but all she feels is jealous that her boobs are small enough to not ever have to wear a bra.

“I’m borrowing your crop top,” Larissa states as she goes to dig through the pile of clothes that never made it into drawers. 

“I’m pretty sure it’ll just be a shirt on you.”

Larissa rolls her eyes. She picks up the crop top (which is really just an old shirt that Camilla cut in half), and slips it over her head. Just as Camilla predicted, it falls to her waist. It’s a good look, though. She somehow manages to make jock clothing artsy. 

Camilla pulls the tanktop on over her sports bra and smiles at her reflection. Where it looked like a dress on Larissa, it looks just baggy enough for it to look the lazy level of sexy that Camilla lives in. 

“Are you planning on getting some tonight?” Larissa steps in front of Camilla to check herself out in the mirror. 

“It’s been a while since I dumped Jack.” Camilla tugs on Larissa’s shirt to adjust it and plops her head down on top of her much shorter friend’s with her hands on Larissa’s shoulders. She looks at the two of them in the mirror together. They look cute, so she pulls out her phone and posts a picture of the two of them on her snap story.

-

It’s too hot in the haus. So hot, in fact, Camilla wishes for her first two years at Samwell when she had nothing to do with the men’s hockey team. Back then, she never went to anything even slightly resembling a kegster, her biggest party attendances including twenty people and bottles of two buck chuck. Not the entire population of Samwell and tub juice, which she still doesn’t know the recipe of. 

She’s two cups deep in the stuff when she runs into the girl with pink hair from her history lecture. She’s just stumbled onto the back porch and she trips over a board and nearly lands in Camilla’s lap. Camilla holds out a hand to steady her by the hip. 

“Oh! You’re Larissa’s friend,” pink-hair says with a grin before sitting down beside Camilla on the porch steps. 

“Funny. That’s what I call you.”

“Manda.”

“Camilla.”

Manda sits beside her on the rickety porch bench. She props her knee up and rests her chin ontop of it, so that she’s staring at Camilla intensely. “You’re beautiful.”

It’s so matter-of-fact that Camilla has no idea what to say. She ducks her head laughs uncomfortably. “Thank you?”

Manda grins. The cheap party lights from inside the haus make her pink hair look purple. “I know you only date guys, but if you didn’t, I’d ask if you want to make out.”

It’s surprising. It’s too forward. It’s…hot. The rush of heat from being wanted by this beautiful woman is overwhelming. It’s so much that Camilla says, without thinking, “I think I would like that.”

As soon as the words come out, she’s torn between relief and wanting to take them back. She doesn’t get the chance to do anything about that, though, because Manda is leaning in and her lips are on Camilla’s and…and….

_Oh._

Without thinking about it, she’s kissing back, one hand going to the back of Manda’s neck, the other resting on her hip. The angle is slightly awkward with them on a bench, but Camilla doesn’t pull away. When Manda slides her tongue over the crease of Camilla’s mouth, she opens it without thinking. When she swings a leg over Camilla’s lap, she grabs onto her hips and lets it happen.

It’s electric. It’s addictive. It’s a confirmation of every questioning thought she’s been having since February. It’s not at all boring. 

It’s right. 

Camilla loses herself in the feeling of her first kiss with a girl so much that she doesn’t hear the back door open. She does, however, hear, “Camilla do you want to-oh shit.”

Before Camilla can shove her off of her lap in shock/an attempt to get rid of what they were just doing, Manda is sliding off and adjusting her crop top. “Hey Larissa! What’s up?”

“Uh…nothing. I was going to ask Camilla if she wanted to go smoke.”

“Yes.” Camilla shoots up from her seat. She starts walking back toward the house without meeting Larissa’s eyes because she can’t. “Come on.”

“Can I come?”

Camilla turns back to Manda and tries to school the glare off of her face. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. You can text me though.” Without giving her number and without checking behind her to see if Larissa is following, she walks into the haus and pushes through the crowd of people.

She’s up the stairs, through Shitty’s room, and out the window before she stops. It’s so different from that first time; the may air is thick and hot and fills her lungs uncomfortably. She sits close to the edge so that her legs can dangle off the edge and wonders if she’d be able to make the jump without shattering an ankle.

“You’d definitely break your leg.” Larissa is climbing through the window behind her, and holds out a hand to beckon her closer to the wall of the house and away from the edge. 

“How did you know I was thinking about jumping off?”

“I know you, Cam.”

Camilla bites her lip and takes Larissa’s hand. She’s really too small to help Camilla at all, but it feels nice to have her there, anyways. Larissa does know her. She knows her shockingly well for a three-and-a-half-month long friendship. Camilla trusts her, loves her, even. She thought it was like a sister.

“I’m sorry.”

Once they’re settled, Larissa turns to stare at Camilla. “What are you sorry for?”

Camilla sighs. She still can’t look Larissa in the eyes so she stares up at the few stars shining through the light pollution. “I’m sorry I kissed Manda.”

“Why?”

“Because I made out with Manda.” This should be obvious to Larissa.

“Why would I be mad about that?”

It’s infuriating because it almost sounds like she doesn’t know, but there’s no way she doesn’t get what’s happening here. Even Jack got it. “Stop pretending you aren’t mad at me.”

“I’m not pretending. I don’t know why you think I should be mad at you about Manda.” Larissa’s voice snaps loudly. It’s the same voice she uses when one of the hausmates won’t help with the chores. 

“You should be mad because I didn’t tell you and I should have. It should’ve been you out there with me.”

It’s a sharp contrast when Larissa speaks next, because she’s gone quieter, softer, has adopted a tone that is almost as timid as Camilla feels. “Tell me what?”

Camilla takes a deep breath in. “I’m a lesbian.”

Larissa puts a hand on Camilla’s arm. “I’m not mad. Why would I be mad? You don’t owe me anything. And fuck any ‘it should’ve been me’ bullshit. What, just because we’re friends, I have to be the one who you experiment with?”

Camilla shakes her head. That’s not right. That’s not what she meant. God, she’s managed to fuck up her own coming out and her own confession to a girl that she really really likes. 

She could take the easy way out, though, and pretend that’s what she meant. Pretend that Larissa is just her best friend who she wanted to experiment with because she feels safe with her. She could pretend that this has nothing to do with the fact that she spends more time thinking about Larissa than about her homework. 

She decides to jump, broken ankles be damned. She leans in and kisses Larissa. It’s awkward, and their noses bump into each other, but she does it with eyes screwed shut. It’s not as sexy as it was with Manda, doesn’t have the rush of it being the first kiss she’s ever had that felt right, but it makes her stomach swoop more than anything another girl could ever do to her.

“I don’t want to experiment with you. It should’ve been you because it should be us.”

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i just want to write a lot about new baby gay camilla collins and how awkward fresh lesbianism can be  
> tumblr: fabbittle


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